As summer fades away I find myself enjoying the especially sweet moments even more than ever before. I am savoring every giggle, every good natured tease, every inside joke with the kids. I am luxuriating in the connectedness and tenderness of it all. I am trying to commit every tender moment to memory, hoping to be able slip these peaceful loving feelings out and find comfort in them over the winter when I anticipate we will be struggling with our stressful separate and clashing schedules and our demanding lives.
Josh, who likes to kick the covers off in the middle of the night, crept into my room at around 5 o’clock this morning looking for some warmth. Not wanting to wake completely up myself, I invited him into the bed with me. For a little while we both tossed and turned. Then the sky took on it’s morning is soon to come glowing shimmer and I, realizing that sleep was not going to make a return appearance for me. I got the brilliant idea that Josh and I could hop into my truck, zip over to the island, canoe to the middle of the glassy still early morning lake and watch the sun come up over the mountains (hills?) that surround us here. I hopped out of bed, started tossing on yesterday’s clothes while excitedly announcing my brilliant idea to a still sleepy and semi bewildered Josh. But he just sat there, declaring his tiredness and lack of desire for a chilly early morning outing. Half dressed, completely and hopelessly awake, psyched up and yet totally defeated I laid myself back down next to Josh. He needed to sleep. He tossed a bit more and then finally, facing me settled his head right into the crook of my underarm. I lied there, facing him with my arms wrapped protectively around his back listening as nature made it’s waking noises outside our window and Josh’s breath gradually slowed, then deepened, and his body finally relaxed into sleep just as the sky brightened into day. I kissed his forehead as gently as I could. It didn’t take long for him to fall into a deep contented slumber.
Lying there holding Josh I thought about how much I love him and how picturesque we must look, tangled up together with my arms encasing his innocent youthful peacefulness. I longed for a way to have a photo of us at that exact moment. I wanted a photo that showed how much I was loving him right at that very second. I am rarely in a photo. I take the photos. I wondered if someone watching me holding him there could actually see how much love I was feeling for him right at that very second. I kissed his sleeping head some more. Surely, a feeling that strong must be visible.
I thought about how I would photograph us lying there. Josh sleeping like an angel and me as awake as can be, millions of thoughts rushing through my head trying so hard just to hold on to how simply and purely good that split second felt, smelled, looked, sounded and even tasted. I contemplated all the angles, the “film speed” and graininess versus using the overhead light, the lamp light or a (heaven forbid) flash. I thought about color versus black and white. I thought about how I usually hope to capture some aspect of my love for the children in the photos I take of them and wondered if one day my kids would look at those photos of their young selves when they are grown and be able to see the love I have for them somewhere in the composition, or the perfect light quality or even in the smiles on their own faces. Because in my most loving photos I am not in front of the lens loving them, but on the other side of the camera, invisible, trying so desperately to capture what may or may not be able to be seen.
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